Pakistan Acknowledges Spy Activity

MUNIR AHMAD

Published 8:00 pm, Sunday, March 17, 2002

Associated Press Writer

The former chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency said Monday that the group's Kashmir and Afghan departments will continue to operate because Pakistan needs intelligence information from the two sensitive areas.

"The Kashmir and Afghan cells will remain working in ISI," government-run television quoted Javed Ashraf Qazi, a former ISI chief who is now Pakistan's minister of communications, as saying.

The statement marked the first time any Cabinet minister has publicly acknowledged the existence of Kashmir and Afghan departments within the ISI, although the agency's activities in both areas have been widely reported in Pakistani media for years.

The Afghan department worked with the United States to support Afghan rebels during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

The ISI later gave strong backing to the Taliban, supporting the Islamic militia from its rise to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s until President Gen. Pervez Musharraf threw his support to the U.S.-led war on terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks.

India has accused the ISI and two Pakistan-based Islamic extremist groups in a December attack on the Indian parliament building in which 14 people, including five assailants, were killed.

Qazi said the Kashmir department is essential because of the presence of Indian forces in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, a divided region claimed by both India and Pakistan.

"After all, India has deployed 700,000 troops at Kashmir border and it is the duty of the ISI to keep an eye on the movement of the Indian troops," Qazi said.